Completed Flintlock Rifle

This shows the sliding wooden patch box being shaped and inlet into the butt. I decided against a brass patch box as it didn't have the heart to hide the beauty of the wood. The stock is a nice piece of stump cut maple with a lot of curl and character.

An image showing the finished sliding wooden patchbox with its brass plate inlet into the butt and brass butt plate.

This image shows the stained maple stock. I treated the wood with a

dilute solution of nitric acid then heated it with an electric heat gun. The stock will turn a rich reddish/golden color.
I then painted on several coats of potassium permanganate dissolved in water. I did this until it was almost black. Where upon I rubbed it out with '000' steel wool and linseed oil. It makes for a very nice finish although labor intensive.

Now the rifle is almost finished. I applied some Alkanet Root dissolved in mineral spirits mixed with Damar varnish and linseed oil over the stock as well. It helps to seal the grain of the wood and lend an ever so very slight red tone to the finish. Every few days I will continue to rub linseed oil into the stock with the palm of my hand. This ads a deep luster to the finish on the stock.

This is the completed rifle patterned after the rifles produced by Herman Rupp from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. It has a .50 caliber swamped barrel, overall length of 59 1/4 inches and weighing about 7 pounds .